5 Best Android Travel Apps for Road Trips – Getting There is Part of the Fun

Going on road trips has become a lot easier since all the travel related prices have gone down remarkably. Installing the best travel apps for road trips on your smartphone, getting a few good friends together and setting off seems like a perfect weekend plan.

Apart from shaky friends who will certainly get sick right when you are about to leave on the adventure, everything else will go just as planned if you have the help of these apps. Exploring new areas of the country and going to new places is always an amazing experience especially if you are traveling with some loved ones. Grab a good camera, or use one of the best camera apps for android and set off to capture some new memories.

The best travel apps for road trips are meant to make your travels easier so that you can concentrate on the fun aspects of the trip. Usually, the driver gets screwed over because they have to focus on the road and have to remember all of the directions. Thankfully, with these great travel apps for road trips on your smartphone, you will be able to navigate easily even if you’re traveling alone.

The best case scenario is your friend who is sitting on the passenger seat uses these apps to give you precise directions while you’re driving. But be aware of those “wrong turn” pranks some stupid friends like to pull off, especially when the next exit is 10 miles away.

Note: The five best travel apps for road trips were tested on a Sony Xperia Z1 smartphone. The apps performed fine during the testing phase, and no problems were faced. All of the apps will require an active Internet connection to work properly. There are some off-line features which can be used if you have already downloaded the map files. I recommend that you, at least, run the apps once before starting your road trip so that everything is set up perfectly.

TripIt: Trip Planner

It may seem tempting to just pack up and leave, but it is always better to make a proper plan. Spontaneous plans, while may look good on paper but in execution there is a high chance that something might go wrong. This app allows you to plan your travels with ease, especially if you’re traveling abroad and need to make hotel bookings and such.

Stopping at roadside restaurants and hotels is okay if you’re traveling with friends but when it comes to family it is always better to be prepared. You will be able to forward hotel, car rental, airline and restaurant confirmation emails and create an instant itinerary. The app will also provide directions and elaborate maps for each destination you select.

Tripoto Travel App: Plan Trips

Tripoto Travel App: Plan Trips is a relatively new app, but it has made a place for itself easily in the list. It is a unique travel app that allows you to discover real travel itineraries which are written by travelers just like you. With more than 200,000 places to visit in the full, you will have no shortage of visiting interesting places.

The interface is designed very beautifully, and I had a lot of fun simply browsing the app and reading travel blogs written by people. The app helps you to plan your location or getaways to places where actual people have been before. Not only will you be able to gain intimate knowledge of the place, but also you might get some tips from fellow travelers. While the app is new, I can see great potential in the future when the user base grows, and we see more and more people speaking their mind about different places.

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Waze

Waze has been on our best navigation apps for android list due to its highly social nature. But when I first tested the app it was remarkable and thankfully it still retains that awesome usability. This is a community driven app that provides real-time traffic and road information. Thankfully, a lot of people are using this app as a daily driver so; there is abundant information about any road you want to travel.

Want to know if there is a milk spill on the highway? This app will warn you about it. Are there chickens running amok on the interchange? You’ll know about all of that thanks to this app.

It will be able to inform you about hazards, road closures and even police traps so that you can avoid those problematic routes altogether. The app also comes with turn by turn voice guided navigation so that the driver can navigate easily anywhere. There are also live maps which are constantly updated and edited by the Waze community map editors.

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Voyager

If you need a simple route planner for your travels, then Voyager: Route Planner will be perfect for you. One of the biggest problems with other navigation apps for Android is that they are either not completely free or are too complex for normal users. This app does away with both of the problems in one go. The app is truly free and comes with no ads at all.

When I contacted the developer, he explained that he is not going to make a single penny off this app. The app is made because he would also like to use it himself. The app comes with one of the simplest interfaces I have seen in a long while and it felt really great to use the app. All you need to do is to simply select a destination and the app will provide you with a suitable and optimized route, it’s that simple.

Restaurant Finder

Just as the name suggests, Restaurant Finder is an app for finding the nearest restaurant. One of the biggest problems of a road trip is that you don’t usually have a lot of option when it comes to eating. Thankfully, this app will able to solve that problem quite easily.

For example, if you want to eat a burger, the app will be able to handily guide you to the nearest burger joint. The app uses location-based services to find the nearest restaurants that are easily accessible to you. If you are simply hungry, you don’t even need to type in anything, the app will be able to find the ones closest to you easily.

One of the best things about this app is that it works worldwide especially in the USA, UK and Canada. The app will also provide general information about the restaurant such as their opening hours and menus so that you can select what you want to eat before you reach there. You can also check out the other restaurant finder apps for android, if you are interested.

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Conclusion

With these great travel apps for road trips on your android smartphone locked and loaded, you will be able to travel carefree on the road. The two biggest problem on road trips are getting lost and being hungry for a long time, these apps will handily solve these problems for you. So pack your bags, call your best buddies or cousins and set up on the long road for the weekend. Truly, android has made almost everything fun and easy to do.